


Obsession is Damon’s Middle Name

by Robin Gills (Akiseo)



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alaric is chill, Bisexuality, Established Relationship, Exes, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, Pictures, Slash, light stalking?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 16:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18782014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akiseo/pseuds/Robin%20Gills
Summary: Damon takes sneaky pics so he can remember; Ric finds out.“It’s a- hobby,” Damon's voice is tight, defensive.“Right,” Ric says, lips twitching up.





	Obsession is Damon’s Middle Name

Ric rolled over lethargically. His hand was awkwardly placed under his head and tingly. He's also missing a certain person. It's still early, sky lightening but not yet sunrise. He finds Damon’s lax form next to him easily and Ric folds himself against Damon's front. Damon’s always a little warm in the morning, heat from Ric under the blanket. Ric curls his arm around Damon's ribcage and behind his back. He burrows his face into Damon's shoulder. Ric breaths in deep, taking in Damon's scent and last night's activities. He loves this. He just wants to bury himself into Damon and stay there, completely enveloped by Damon's scent, his arms. Damon hmms sleepily, moving his head to get comfortable and to place a cheek on Ric's forehead. Ric thinks they both fall asleep again or at least lightly doze but he feels as Damon shifts away. He doesn’t think anything of it, he’s back quickly enough.

A few minutes of lying there and Ric's having trouble falling back asleep. Damon's a little twitchy and keeps brushing against Ric, a hand in his hair, against his cheek, Damon kisses him quickly but then seems to settle back for a moment at least. Ric thinks about checking the time when his eyes flutter open and he sees Damon holding a phone over their heads, camera app clearly showing Damon rapidly taking photos.

Ric smiles. “What are you doing?” He asks chuckling, voice rough, cracking.

“Nothing,” Damon says far too quickly.

“Sure,” Ric says still smiling. “Can I see your nothing?” He’s curious now. Ric never thinks about taking pictures, he’d like a few.

“No,” Damon says and starts to pull away.

“Please,” Ric's says laughing at Damon's antics. Ric tries to hold on as his pillow squirms away.

“I said, no.” Damon pulls away forcefully.

Ric flops against the pillows at Damon's quick withdrawal.

Realizing Damon wasn’t playing coy just now. Ric sits up on one elbow rubbing at his eyes. “Okay... Didn’t know it was such a touchy subject.” Ric sees the clock. Its six am. He’ll take another hour of sleep thank you.

He yawns. “Thought it’d be nice to have one is all.” Damon could maybe use more sleep too, if he's already this testy but Ric rolls over closing his eyes. He hears Damon shrug on clothes and leaves the bedroom. Ric tries to fall back asleep, but the weird reaction sticks with him and he listlessly lays in bed. Thoughts jumping around.

Ric doesn’t get much sleep. Forty-five minutes later though his phone buzzes. Ric sees Damon's sent him the photo. Ric snuggled into Damon’s shoulder and Damon pressing his lips to Ric’s forehead both sleepy and hair tousled. Ric smiles and he feels his heart hurt in a good way. He saves the photo as his lock screen and decides to get up.

At breakfast, Damon studiously ignores him for the paper but Ric smiles mutely. Stefan squints his eyes at them suspiciously from across the table. Ric grabs coffee and sets his phone down suspiciously close to Damon's wrist when he sits. The lock screen lights up for a moment. Ric knows Damon sees it because he blushes furiously. Now that’s something Ric’s never seen. Damon drops the paper and stands to walk back to the bedroom. Ric smiles knowingly.

“What’s going on? Damon’s not usually one for the silent treatment.”

“Oh nothing,” Ric smiles, chuckling to himself. He’ll follow Damon up the stairs in a few minutes.

\---

Ric starts to notice it more. He catches brief flashes of the phone coming out or being put away at any given moment. Out of the corner of his eye, he'll see Damon taking quick selfies of Ric and himself. Sometimes when Ric's by himself, he sees a phone disappearing into a pocket in the peripheral of his vision.

Ric’s falling asleep a few weeks later. Damon curled into Ric's back, puffs of breath occasionally against his neck. Ric’s pretty sure he’s sneaking in a picture, but he doesn’t open his eyes to verify. “What do you do with them all?”

They’re quiet for a while then Damon shifts behind him. Finally, Damon whispers lips against his skin, “Nothing.”

\---

Ric finds them quite by accident a month later. It's after work and he’s looking for the stupid little doohickey that connects his earbuds to his iPhone. He wants to squeeze in a run before dinner and hasn’t found the assinine device where he usually leaves it. He’s looking around Damon’s room, side table, under the bed, around the barely used desk when he sees a panel in the wall not quite flush with the rest of the wall. Curiously peaked, he walks over to it. He's never really paid much attention to this area of the room. Damon doesn't use the desk and Ric usual grades downstairs when he's here.

He's suddenly full of his eight-year-old self, pretending to explore his house's creepy attic, and reading about discovering hidden passageways in old houses. His imagination fills with what could be hidden behind, old books, ledgers, journals, not Stefans', or maybe items left from a past tenant of the boarding house or long lost paintings. A body? Although that'd probably be the least surprising thing at this point in his life. Even with the real-life fantasy come true as of late, Ric is still an explorer at heart. He had Indiana Jones action figures. Ric runs a finger down the edge. There are no handles, but it sticks out enough he can get his fingers tips to pull it open.

The door sticks for a moment and then gives way like it was held closed by magnets. Perhaps a secret lock or switch exists somewhere.

Excitement high. The door opens easily after that but it’s dark inside, no windows. Ric feels around for a light-switch, maybe he'll need his phone flashlight. He finds a crude switch to the right and when turned on a large, long unfinished closet is filled with a red glow.

Tacked to every inch of the walls and hanging from a hung string all over to dry are pictures of Alaric.

Not what he was expecting.

Pictures from all aspects of Ric's life. A few of himself teaching, eating or drinking at the grill, walking somewhere, dinner with Elena and Jeremy, getting coffee, in the boarding house reading. There is a particularly gruesome looking one with Ric holding his crossbow and a bloody stake in his hand. A murderous expression on his face. But- a large portion of them from right here in the bedroom. Of Ric, sleeping.

There are quite a few of Damon and Ric together but never with Ric looking at the camera. He sees the one Damon sent him on his phone printed out and he sees the ones he didn’t. Ric in his arms, Damon pressing his forehead to Ric’s, noses millimeters from brushing against each other, hand on his cheek, hand lightly brushing Ric’s hair. Next to that one is a picture of Damon kissing him, Ric’s eyes are closed.

There’s a section that looks newly exposed hanging up to dry. There all of Ric, butt naked. Some completely nude, the sheet pulled down. Some with a sheet artfully placed. A lot of pictures with different angles of his ass, a few morning woods.

There are some pictures where a lot of care was put into the placement of the shot and some appear more candid shots. Some from across the room other close up. Ric can’t help but stare at them all.

He knows Damon can be obsessive. Over a hundred years Damon was in love with and obsessed with freeing one person and that had told Ric a lot about who Damon is. When he lets it, Damon loves deeply, passionately, and wholly. Look out if you're in his sights. Ric thought about all of that once the casual fucks in the back of his car became something more. Knowing all that, Ric finds he’s actually not all that surprised by what he's seeing. He’s not really that bothered by the stocker photos either. Is he so desensitized that a little picture stocking by his own partner doesn't even rate on his scale of crazy he's seen? He dismisses it though. He's too deep in this world, this doesn't even rate on the scale of things to worry about.

He tears his eyes away enough to register a desktop computer on a long desk against the wall and photo processing equipment next to a printer. There is a small shelf with a literal museum of old cameras. Some very old and one or two new within the last two years. There are old photo boxes on most of the shelves. Some are dusty, not touched in years, a few have fingerprints in the dust. Some boxes are brand new. They all have names scrawled across the front. Female and male mixed together. Some names have two to three boxes, some boxes have multiple names on one. Some have dates others don’t. Full names, sometimes only a first name.

Ric doesn’t see one for Katherine and he only recognizes his and Elena’s name and suspiciously a "Freddie M." box. Elena has one box. Ric has four. He pulls down the top one of the four. He opens it on the free space next to the shallow bins. More naked photos, but of the two of them. He pulls one out that he particularly likes. Damon curled into Ric’s neck. Ric’s lips brushing Damon’s forehead.

A shadow quickly falls across the entrance of the door and Ric looks up a little sheepish, caught. Damon folds his arms across his chest his jaw clenched eyebrows furrowed. “It’s a- hobby,” his voice is tight, defensive.

“Right,” Ric says lips, twitching up. “Is this what you do all day when I'm working?" He holds up the picture he was just looking at. "Can I have this one?” Damon’s eyebrows go up a fraction surprised. He's still frowning and tense though.

Ric smile breaks across his face. He walks to the entrance of the hidden closet. Damon’s still stiff but allows Ric to sling an arm around his waist, hand splayed across his lower back. Damon drops his arms but puts his hands on his hips instead.

“Don’t think that I don’t know who I’m fucking.” Ric smirks. “I think I know you pretty well. They’re a little kinky-er than I expected but you should have told me. I would have given you a better angles.” Ric chuckles and kisses the side of Damon's mouth.

Damon squints at him still suspicious. “You’re not- like upset?”

“Maybe a little humbled, I don't have any of you. But not angry, not surprised. You can explain why if you want, when you’re ready but I'm not particularly upset, no. I like them. You made a shrine to me. How can I be mad about that?” Ric smirks.

“Well I wouldn’t go that far,” Damon says finally relaxing a bit, shoulders dropping a few tics. Ric just smiles, presses they’re hips closer together.

“You have wall to wall photos of me strung up in a secret closet. I didn’t see anybody else’s photos hanging on that wall. You may be a candle short, but I’d call that a shrine, babe.”

Damon purses his lips together, but just shrugs a little, attempting for uncaring but Ric knows different. Ric laughs and peppers a few kisses to those pursed lips.

“I tend to-” Damon starts after Ric pulls back. His arms hesitantly encircling Ric’s waist, perhaps not ready to admit it yet, to Ric’s face. “To obsess over people, I- like.” He’s looking at Ric’s chest but defiantly looks into Ric’s face at the last.

“I know,” Ric says gently, “and I’m glad to be one of them.” Damon searches his face, hand coming up to tap fingers at Ric’s jaw. When was Damon going believe that Ric knows Damon pretty well and not going anywhere. That he loves him faults and all and that Damon loves Ric.

“So, can I keep it?” Ric asks. Damon looks at the picture again and shrugs. “Where are you going to put it?”

“Don’t know yet,” Ric says. "Maybe I'll blow it up and put it on a billboard."

"Pft."

“Last question. Is Freddie M. Who I think it is?” Ric's gotta know.

Damon drops his gaze to Ric's chest. “I should hide that one. I told him I wouldn’t show anybody and he trusted me.”

“I don’t want to see- well I can’t say I’m not curious, but I won’t peak. You’ll have to tell me about him some time though. And your other less famous, less revenge-y, less vampire-y ex’s.”

“Perhaps I will. Have you told me all about your exes?” Damon smiles, eyes glinting, returning to his usual self for a moment.

“You’ve met about fifty percent of them. If you want to hear about how I kissed Jimmy McCoy at a sleepover when I was thirteen, and Lily Abeles gave me a hand job when I was fifteen behind a Dairy Queen, there’s nothing much to tell,” Ric laughs.

“First time? Isobel wasn’t…?” Damon asks trails off.

“Molly Bishop senior year,” Ric supplies. “Then Ben Foster freshmen year in college. Ben was my longest relationship before Isobel. Oh! I did get a sloppy blowie from a guy in the back of a club once. But that’s it, I’m afraid. Under par the national average.”

“Hm…” Damon smirks but is quiet for a while.

“You know Katherine was my first.” He finally says and Ric nods. Talk about an intense first relationship. “Oscar Warren Hunnicutt the third. Another vampire, he was my first after Katherine but there was a large gap between them.” Ric nods again understanding or at least thinking he does.

"He must have been special," Ric says quietly. Getting the vampirism thing down and the heartbreak of losing Katherine and finding ways to save her. It must have taken a while and someone special to feel okay to be out there again.

"He was. But I was still thinking back then that they were all just place holders though, all of them.”

“Katherine.” Ric doesn’t need to ask. Damon nods. No one needs to mention that Damon's done with her, Katherine and Elena both, that's all over. But the acknowledgment that Damon and Ric's relationship isn't a place holder is significant to Ric. It's one thing to think there's something more to the relationship but to hear it from Damon makes Ric's heart full. This time, this relationship, Damon doesn't have one foot out the door.

"I started taking pictures because I was starting to forget. I didn't have a picture of Katherine. I knew Stefan had one but we weren't always around each other. For as long as I've lived, you remember people, but their faces get harder and harder to grasp in your mind. Then slowly your time together slips from your memory. I didn't want that to happen to the ones I loved most, human or vampire. Especially the lovers I didn't turn... I didn't want to forget them."

They're silent for a moment and Ric studies Damon's face. The unspoken elephant in the room they never talk about. Ric wonders if this is the moment Damon asks. Are they going to talk about it?

“I’ll tell you about some of them sometime. They were very fun.”

“When you’re ready, I’d like that.” Ric smiles gently, sighing. Ric can wait for a little while longer but sooner rather than later they're going to have to talk. Ric knows he doesn't want to give this up- give Damon up. But he knows he's getting older and a decision will have to be made. What he saw in that closet though. He's fairly sure he'll say yes.

But today will not be that day.

Ric says lightly, “Now about these pictures of me. How do I get copies?”


End file.
